Hanyang and Hyundai-Kia Robotics Lab steer the X-ble MEX exoskeleton with brainwaves and a wink, hitting 95% command accuracy

A team led by Professor Im Chang-hwan of Hanyang University's Department of Biomedical Engineering said on Oct 8 that, together with the Hyundai Motor and Kia Robotics Lab, it controlled the X-ble MEX lower-limb wearable robot in real time with a hybrid brain-computer interface, in work published in IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering (DOI 10.1109/TNSRE.2026.3729803), Robot Newspaper (irobotnews) reported.

Instead of pressing buttons on a crutch handle, the user wears AR glasses showing four options (single step, continuous walking, turn left, turn right); a wireless dry-electrode EEG headband detects which option the user is looking at, a one-eye wink picked up as an electro-oculogram signal executes it, and clenching the jaw, read by EMG, cancels or stops.

In trials with ten healthy adults walking a set route, turning and sitting down, the team reported 95.06% average EEG selection accuracy, F1 scores of 99.80% for winks and 99.22% for jaw clenches, a usability score of 78.25 against 53.50 for the crutch-button method, and a drop in perceived physical workload from 7.85 to 3.15.

Four of the eight authors are from the Hyundai-Kia Robotics Lab, which develops the X-ble line; the study used healthy volunteers, not paraplegic users. It is the second brain-signal rehabilitation robot in MEKAWIRE's Korean coverage this week, after Dynamic Solution's BCI hand on Oct 15, alongside Hurotics' KRW 25bn round for wearable gait suits.